Plundering Paradise: The Hand Of Man On The Galapagos Islands [Englisch] [Bibliothekseinband]

The problem I see with the book, however, is that the author shines a negative, unconstructive light on most every single subject that he mentions in a self-serving attempt to add to the impact of the book, even at the expense of loosing objectivity.

D'Orso's book is so unreasonably pessimistic on all fronts that one can't help but wonder why, if according to the D'Orso the present and, mostly, the future is so utterly bleak for the Galapagos Islands, have the islands repeatedly been deemed one of the best preserved natural parks in the world or one of the last remaining natural paradises in near pristine condition.

The author came to Ecuador during very difficult and trying times for the country. As an Ecuadorian, I readily admit that we are rough around the edges in many ways and that we have a long way to go on some fronts. We do. But D'Orso's journalism, it seems to me, is like going to the US during the LA riots, the ENRON debacle, the Marion Barry scandal, the Exxon Valdez spill, the O.J. soap opera, the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal, etc. and passing all this as everyday America in a book called "Plundering Nation" This would be wrong, wouldn't it? But doing so with mockery and disdain, as D'Orso does, is even less correct !

The Galapagos islands face many threats and what's being done to protect them may not be ultimately sufficient on all accounts, so improvements are becessary. Better controls, more funding and more political compromise may be needed.

I do dare say, however, that the current state of the islands and the ongoing control and conservation efforts are a source more for optimism than the other way around.

In the past several years introduced animals have been eradicated from several islands, land tortoises, reproduced and bred in captivity, have been repatriated to many islands; marine iguanas have also been bred and repatriated to islands where they were disappearing (as is the case with Baltra Island). Quarantines and controls have been implemented, education efforts have been undertaken, migration bans have been enforced. Several laws which require strong political will have been enacted. The Galapagos have been declared a marine reserve, where industrial fishing is completely off-limits.

However, according to the author, the Galapagos are a place were con-men arrive to evade the law..., where there are rusted Toyota's for taxis...(I've been to the Galapagos some 8 times and have never seen a rusted Toyota passing as a taxi!), a place to which Ecuadorians "flee along with their families from Quito and Guayaquil were the streets are awash with poverty and crime and the air stinks of corruption and despair...", etc., I could go on and on with this.

One last quote from the book (as it very much describes the scornful spirit with which D'Orso's book was written): "With such riches, there seems to be no reason for this nation to be spiraling downward like the swirl in a flushing toilet..."

Bottom line: the book is important and helpful in many ways and rightly unsettling, but its very flawed too.

Several astute and eccentric long-time residents of the islands serve as D'Orso's first person commentators, giving him insight in to the islands' history, explaining how they have changed, and commenting on the ecological disasters now unfolding. The disasters are many, and they are getting worse, according to D'Orso. In crisp and unambiguous prose, which he sometimes wields like a truncheon, he excoriates corrupt local officials, judges, and members of the national government. Many of these, he points out, have financial interests in the oil, fishing, boating, and tourism industries, but they also want to be seen as "populist" supporters of the poor immigrants who have flooded the Galapagos looking for a piece of the tourist action. The government, he says, is "so horrifically convoluted and corrupt that onlookers have taken to calling this country 'Absurdistan.'"

The introduction of non-native animal species (rats, feral dogs and cats, pigs, goats, and burros), along with foreign insect life (wasps, roaches, and fire ants), and foreign plants (blackberry, lantana, and wild guava bushes) has already permanently changed the environment on which much of the Galapagos wildlife depends. Fishing regulations are wantonly ignored, and penalties are not assessed for violations. Sea cucumbers and other marine life continue to be harvested willy-nilly; fishing boats with long-lines up to 75 miles long continue to hook and kill protected species; and rustbucket oil tankers, never inspected and often owned by highly placed public officials, carry nearly raw petroleum to the islands. They are already responsible for one major oil spill in the formerly pristine islands.

Most threatening, however, is the massive influx of economic refugees from the Ecuadorian mainland who have brought the permanent population to twenty thousand (to be thirty thousand by 2010). With a lack of fresh water and adequate sanitation, and the immigrants' single-minded determination to tap into the underwater riches of the Galapagos, the ecological disaster is not just threatening--it's already happened. In a recent uprising, these immigrants physically destroyed the national park and station offices, along with the personal homes of the directors, even ripping out their toilets.

D'Orso is passionate in his desire to awaken the world community to the disaster that is taking place before the islands have been totally destroyed. His forecast is bleak, but his message, and his book, are strong. Mary Whipple

"These islands were simply not made for people," D'Orso writes, but he has interviewed a lot of them for this book to portray humans that are making a go of it anyway. Some of them are eccentric, some admirable, but the islands are few, and have desirable properties, and surpassing written law, the law of supply and demand holds sway (just as Darwin knew). Humans have a poor record of improving the lands they have inhabited everywhere, but D'Orso is withering in particular scorn for the corrupt Ecuadorian government, colloquially called "Absurdistan." Such an environment only encourages people to grab any profits they can, and makes impossible long range planning for conserving the islands' resources. Global agencies are reluctant to invest as they can predict how little money would make it to environmental improvement. There has been a proposal that the Galapagos should be under UN trusteeship; after all, it is one of those sites that requires little imagination to view as belonging to the heritage of all humans. From time to time someone suggests banning tourism. Neither proposal is likely to impress those who are currently gaining incomes from things as they stand.

D'Orso's book brings an important problem to light. It is written as an entertaining profile of different members of the human species who have washed ashore on Galapagos. There are the ex-hippie who has run a hotel there for thirty-five years, the German recluse, the park ranger who endangers himself by hunting poachers, the charmingly corrupt mayor, the Jehovah's Witness naturalist guide, and more. In describing their activities, he has given a human profile to the islands. It is a sad look, nonetheless. Market forces are no way to run an ecosystem.